Rutgers Addiction Research Center in the Brain Health Institute is incredibly excited to welcome Dr. Kristina Jackson to our leadership team. Starting October 1, 2023, Dr. Jackson will assume the position of Associate Director of Epidemiology, Etiology, and Prevention in the RARC, and tenured Professor of Psychiatry in Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. 
As an Associate Director within the RARC, Dr. Jackson will help lead initiatives related to the core mission of the RARC to build community, and grow interdisciplinary research, training, and outreach programs across Rutgers campuses. Dr. Jackson will also conduct scientific research into contextual mechanisms of influence underlying substance use, including social influences and exposure to alcohol content in the media, as well as exploring factors that lead to cannabis use and beliefs about its effects.

Kristina M. Jackson received her PhD in applied social psychology at Arizona State University, with an emphasis on quantitative methods and their application to health-related behaviors through analysis of both epidemiological and experimental intervention data.

Dr. Jackson is currently a professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University, where her program of research focuses on initiation and the developmental course of substance use and co-use among adolescents and young adults. Her research bridges substantive theory and advanced methodologies, leveraging her expertise in applying innovative analytic approaches to research in the substance use area, and translating developmental theory to findings by applying newly emerging methods for modeling change.